


No Rest For The Wicked

by SamFuckingWinchester



Category: The Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare, The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Gen, M/M, Nostalgia, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:01:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26256082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamFuckingWinchester/pseuds/SamFuckingWinchester
Summary: “You were talking in your sleep again.” Magnus sighed and folded his head in his hands for a long moment. Alec’s fingers grazed over his back. Wondering, curious, but assuring. “Would you tell me about him? About Will?”In which Alec finally has the courage to ask about William Herondale, and Magnus finally has the courage to tell him. Post City Of Heavenly Fire, Pre Lady Midnight
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Kudos: 42





	No Rest For The Wicked

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't read anything more than The Infernal Devices and the 6 TMI books, and it's been years since I read the latter, so there might be discrepancies between this and the source material. I'll get there once I stop crying about Will Herondale. Don't hold your breath for that, though. Please Enjoy.

There was no rest for the wicked, and for the third night in a row Alec counted himself among the damned. Alexander Lightwood had never been a particularly heavy sleeper; it wasn’t the kind of habit a Shadowhunter ought to have. Still, he’d never had a consistent problem with sleep. It was a new predicament. Magnus murmured again, the words so profound Alec might have assumed he’d woken. 

Not words. Just one, a name. 

_Will._

__For the third night in a row Alec sighed miserably and ran a hand through his hair. Magnus didn’t talk in his sleep if he was dreaming soundly. It would only be out of concern if Alec woke him, he reasoned. They might both rest easier. Alec wrapped his fingers around the curve of the warlock’s shoulder and shook once, hard enough to stir him._ _

__Magnus startled and curled into rightness so quickly that Alec was sure he’d throw out his back._ _

__“Sorry,” he murmured. “You were talking in your sleep again.” Magnus sighed and folded his head in his hands for a long moment. Alec’s fingers grazed over his back. Wondering, curious, but assuring. “Would you tell me about him? About Will?” The name stirs something in Magnus and it makes Alec’s heart race. He’d heard the name before, of course, and in Alec’s mind all associations were now negative; some invisible, long-dead competitor Alec couldn’t defend himself from, which only lead to thoughts about the inevitable, and neither men were interested in rehashing that conversation any time soon._ _

__Would Alec be that long-dead competitor to someone in the future?_ _

__“Will,” Magnus breathed. “He must be on my mind. I’m sorry I woke you,” he added, turning to look over his shoulder. Alec waited, shrugged noncommittally and stroked the sheets with a free hand. He watched the cat breathe, curled up on the vanity, and then tried to match the motion, exhaling with exaggerated slowness. “I’ll make some tea,” Magnus eventually said, relenting._ _

__Alec hadn’t moved when Magnus returned. He accepted a mug and watched the snow fall onto the sidewalk, Brooklyn still bustling with people even at the late hour. Whatever moment Magnus was having with himself, Alec felt compelled to give him space. The warlock cleared his throat and Alec took the signal to turn back around. He crawled into Magnus’s space without hesitation and settled in._ _

__“Have you ever been to London?” Magnus inquired, almost nonchalant. It took Alec a second to understand the question was for him. He shook his head, blue eyes fixed on Magnus’s far-away expression. “Dreary, really, and not much to see. I suppose there’s more reason to go now. But the eighteenth century couldn’t have been much fun for the mundane population, I imagine. They were always dying awful deaths…” he trailed off and then shook his head as if to clear it. Alec was used to this, the way his storyteller could be sidetracked, especially if the memory in question was painful. “There were so many wrapped up in magic back then. The Shadowhunters in London had their hands full.” Alec knew there were other institutes around the world, of course, but he struggled to picture the magnificent building he called home, gothic in architecture and sitting under stormy skies, of wet cobblestones and women in high gowns._ _

__“Was Will a Shadowhunter?” Alec prompted. Magnus just smiled with the corners of his mouth, still buried deep in his memory._ _

__“One of the best. He knew it, of course. Herondales usually do.” The surname made Alec’s breath hitch, but Magnus continued. “You know Shadowhunters have a reputation with Downworlders, and I was no different. The affairs of nephilim never concerned me much.”_ _

__“But?” Alec said when Magnus hadn’t gone on._ _

__“But our paths crossed much the same way yours and mine did. Will was a brilliant Shadowhunter, it’s true. It’s so easy to forget you’re just children under that holy armor. Strip away the weapons and the runes, the angel blood and the innate warrior, and you’re really just children,” Magnus said with wonder. He glanced briefly at Alec and noted the outrage._ _

__“I’m hardly a child,” he challenged. Magnus held his smile._ _

__“But you, were, weren’t you? At one time? We all were. And William Herondale had seen more in his childhood than even most nephilim ever had. He was so terribly broken when he stumbled up to my door that night. Like an abandoned puppy, really.”_ _

__“Why did he go to you?” Alec asked, his tone almost rude. The blush coloring his cheeks extinguished the effect._ _

__Magnus only shrugged. “I like fixing things.” After a few moments and another sip of tea, he continued. “It was Camille’s house actually. He was always tracking mud in on the carpets.”_ _

__“Camille!” Alec growled, scowling out into the night._ _

__“Should I finish the story or not?” Magnus asked, but the humor in his voice was clear. Alec sighed and relaxed again. “Camille brought him up around you because she was under the impression that Will and I were together at some point. It was a terrible lie, but he was so incredibly beautiful that I don’t blame her for thinking it was true. She knew my type.” A squeeze around Alec’s now-stiff shoulder. Another moment of loaded silence and sips of tea. “She believed it because that’s what I wanted her to do. Will was, let’s say, an unwitting accomplice to my escape. I’m grateful for it. He was one of the most fascinating men I’ve ever met.”_ _

__“Did you love him?” Alec knew the saying about curiosity and what it had done to the cat, but his lips formed the words before his brain was able to catch up._ _

__“Not like that. Will was quite otherwise occupied in that department, I assure you.” Alec huffed indignantly and Magnus smiled wider, slender fingers carding through dark hair._ _

__“What did he look like?”_ _

__If Magnus realized it was a loaded question, his face didn’t give him away. “Hair as dark as the night, somehow managed to get even blacker in the rain. Deep eyes, always moving, never quite focused on one thing. Regal, of course, even for his time period. The set of his mouth and brow, always turned down in concentration, except when he slept, or when Tessa…” he trailed off, shaking his head in earnest now. Alec was unconsciously gripping the sleeve of his night shirt. He loosened his hold and stretched his fingers out slowly. Magnus took them in his hands and rubbed them between his palms. “He and Jace have that in common. The stubborn, haunted look. You know it,” he offered, and Alec nodded. “More importantly,” Magnus continued, seeming to choose the next words carefully, “they’re both profoundly good men.”_ _

__“You miss him.” A statement of fact, not an accusation. Magnus looked away, anyway._ _

__“Yes.”_ _

__“You don’t usually talk in your sleep,” Alec observed. Magnus uncharacteristically bit the inside of his cheek. He rolled over suddenly and magicked the mugs from both their hands, grabbing Alec in what would be a decent hold if his touch weren’t so light. Alec laughed in surprise and fell against the bed, tucked into the other man’s chest, warm blankets draped over his legs, story all but forgotten. And then he sighed, heavy but content, wishing for dreams that would allow him to picture the world Magnus was talking about, the busy streets of old London, the bell tolls and rush of the ferries, hooves on cobblestones and Shadowhunters hovering just out of sight. He got none of it but undisturbed darkness._ _

__._ _

__Magnus didn’t fall back asleep. Instead he allowed the memories to come freely, something he usually wouldn’t tolerate in the day; there were simply too many. If he drowned in them for too long he’d never resurface. Eight hundred years was an inexplicable amount of time to be alive. The long-dead faces flashed behind his eyelids._ _

__Charlotte holding her distended belly in wonder. Henry’s triumphant cry as all pairs of eyes stared dubiously at his rendition of the first portal. James practicing on his violin under the watchful gaze of Church in the library. Gabriel and Gideon arguing over Latin translations at the grand table over dinner. Cecily curiously watching while Magnus toyed with the glitter Henry had gifted him, head tipped to the side so her raven hair fanned over the angles of her cheekbones. Sophie and Tessa giggling while aiming knives at targets on the wall of the weapons room. The latter, of course, was not entirely dead, but the young woman who had arrived in London under a shroud of confusion all those years ago was gone, left in the century she’d arrived in._ _

__And Will, taking Jem’s hand and rushing off the steps of the Institute, ranting and raving about Demon Pox. Will, running after the demon who had stolen his childhood and murdered his sister, no more than a shadow in the foggy night. Will, naked on the floor, holding his Tessa so close that she ought to be physically connected to him. Will, bloody, muddy, wet, dizzy, lost, on Camille’s couch. Will, gasping in surprise as Magnus had connected their lips. Will, teeth sinking into a vampire’s skin in retaliation. Will, knuckles white from the pressure he used to grab his dying _paratabai’s_ hand, glorious face twisted in agony. Will, with Hellish eyes and a criminally handsome smile. Will, nose buried in a book with a cracked spine, fingers supporting its weight the same way he would one day cradle a child. Will, dramatic and angry and cold and angelic and brave and afraid and pompous and loving and joyful and warm and loyal and fantastic, all at once. _ _

__And Will, and Will, and Will._ _

__Though Tessa always seemed to drop back into his life periodically over the years, and Magnus welcomed her presence if not simply for the company of another immortal, he never expected William Herondale to linger in his mind so often. It surprised him how much pain and buried longing the Shadowhunter’s face conjured. Of course, this could all be attributed to Jace’s role in his life as well, though the two men didn’t share as many features after so much time. The same jaw, the same determination and wit, but little else. That was comforting. Whatever Will had done to Magnus’s heart, he wasn’t sure he would be able to handle more than he already wrestled with. It was different now that he had Alec, besides._ _

__His hand had tightened unconsciously around Alec’s wrist. He worked to loosen it and buried his nose in Alec’s hair, taking one deep breath after another, until the faces faded and flickered and could barely be conjured. They would not be strong enough to keep him from sleeping if he didn’t give them the power. Most wouldn’t put up a fight, and the harder Magnus worked to drown them out the faster they disappeared._ _

__All except for one._ _


End file.
